Leaves from a Field Note-Book | Page 3

said the Field-Marshal.
"From Tirah, Sahib."
"Ah! we have had some little trouble with your folk at Tirah. But all
that is now past. Serve the Emperor faithfully and it shall be well with
you."
"Ah! Sahib, but I am sorely troubled in my mind."
"And wherefore?"
"My aged father writes that a pig of a thief hath taken our cattle and
abducted our women-folk. I would fain have leave to go on furlough
and lie in a nullah at Tirah with my rifle and wait for him. Then would
I return to France."

"Patience! That can wait. How like you the War?"
"Burra Achha Tamasha,[1] Sahib. But we like not their big guns. We
would fain come at them with the bayonet. Why are we kept back in the
trenches, Sahib?"
"Peace! It shall come in good time."
They passed into another cabin reserved for native officers. A tall Sikh
rose to a half-sitting posture and saluted.
"What is your name?"
"H---- Sing, Sahib."
"There was a H---- Sing with me in '78," said the Field-Marshal
meditatively. "With the Kuram Field Force. He was my orderly. He
served me afterwards in Burmah and was promoted to subadar."
The aquiline features of the Sikh relaxed, his eyes of lustrous jet
gleamed. "Even so, Sahib, he was my father."
"Good! he was a man. Be worthy of him. And you too are a subadar?"
"Yea, Sahib, I have eaten the King's salt these twelve years."
"That is well. Have you children?"
"Yea, Sahib, God has been very good."
"And your lady mother, is she alive?"
"The Lord be praised, she liveth."
"And how is your 'family'?"
"She is well, Sahib."
"And how like you this War?"

"Greatly, Sahib. The Goora-log[2] and ourselves fight like brothers
side by side. But we would fain see the fine weather. Then there will be
some muzza[3] in it."
The Field-Marshal smiled and passed on.
They entered the great ward in the main hold of the ship. Here were
avenues of swinging cots, in double tiers, the enamelled iron white as
snow, and on the pillow of each cot lay a dark head, save where some
were sitting up--the Sikhs binding their hair as they fingered the
kangha and the chakar, the comb and the quoit-shaped hair-ring, which
are of the five symbols of their freemasonry. The Field-Marshal
stopped to talk to a big sowar. As he did so the men in their cots raised
their heads and a sudden whisper ran round the ward. Dogras, Rajputs,
Jats, Baluchis, Garhwalis clutched at the little pulleys over their cots,
pulled themselves up with painful efforts, and saluted. In a distant
corner a Mahratta from the aboriginal plains of the Deccan, his features
dark almost to blackness, looked on uncomprehendingly; Ghurkhas
stared in silence, their broad Mongolian faces betraying little of the
agitation that held them in its spell. From the rest there arose such a
conflict of tongues as has not been heard since the Day of Pentecost.
From bed to bed passed the magic words, "It is he." Every man uttered
a benediction. Many wept tears of joy. A single thought seemed to
animate them, and they voiced it in many tongues.
"Ah, now we shall smite the German-log exceedingly. We shall fight
even as tigers, for Jarj Panjam.[4] The great Sahib has come to lead us
in the field. Praised be his exalted name."
The Field-Marshal's eyes shone.
"No, no," he said, "my time is finished. I am too old."
"Nay, Sahib," said the sowar as he hung on painfully to his pulley, "the
body may be old but the brain is young."
The Field-Marshal strove to reply but could not. He suddenly turned on
his heel and rushed up the companion-ladder. When halfway up he

remembered the O.C. and retraced his steps. The tears were streaming
down his face.
"Sir," he said, in a voice the deliberate sternness of which but ill
concealed an overmastering emotion, "your hospital arrangements are
excellent. I have seen none better. I congratulate you. Good-day." The
next moment he was gone.
* * * * *
Five days later the colonel was standing on the upper deck; he gripped
the handrail tightly and looked across the harbour basin. Overhead the
Red Cross ensign was at half-mast, and at half-mast hung the Union
Jack at the stern. And so it was with every ship in port. A great silence
lay upon the harbour; even the hydraulic cranes were still, and the
winches of the trawlers had ceased their screaming. Not a sound was to
be heard save the shrill poignant cry of the gulls and the hissing of an
exhaust pipe. As the colonel looked across the still waters of the
harbour basin he saw a bier, covered with a Union Jack, being